a painter´s attempt to conquer the great white canvas

The Changing Seasons – May 2019

The Power of Nature

What impressed me most this month was the sheer frightening power of Mother Nature, when during a storm that lasted only about half an hour, suddenly a lightening bolt struck the chimney from a house opposite mine.

Firemen examining the damage done by the lightening bolt (May 2019)

Huge pieces of debris damaged roof tiles and cars, but luckily no people were hurt.

The Berliner Feuerwehr arrived shortly after the incident, examining the damage and securing the place.

I was hesitant at first to take some pictures, but after I saw that the firemen were doing it themselves – posing in front of the chimney, the enormous ladder in the background and then waving over to me on my balcony – I thought I would give it a go myself. Since no people were hurt and I didn’t hinder them in their efforts, I think it was okay for me to do this.

Pottering About

Since this school term comes to an end in a matter of weeks, I’m quite busy firing lots of ceramics that my students and I made this year.

A piece that I think came out quite nicely, is this new yarn bowl in shape of a kitten:

Kitten yarn bowl (unfired clay, May 2019)

Detail kitten yarn bowl (May 2019)

Black and white study of my kitten yarn bowl (May 2019)

And this is how it looks now after I’ve applied a couple of different glazes:

Kitten yarn bowl – fired and glazed (May 2019)

Kitten yarn bowl (May 2019)

Notebooks Galore!

During a lovely shopping trip with my mum (I usually don’t like shopping very much, but this time it was actually quite nice), I found these 5 notebooks that were a real bargain and that I simply had to buy, because one can never have enough notebooks, right? 😉

Notebooks, notebooks, notebooks! (May 2019)

A New Blog Challenge!

A Heureka-moment! (watercolor 2018)

And this morning I had an idea for a new blog challenge!

The challenge is going to start tomorrow, so stay tuned in. 😉

If you’re interested in participating, here are the guidelines for The Changing Seasons Challenge:

The Changing Seasons Version One (photographic):

Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery that you feel represent your month

Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.

Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them

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64 thoughts on “The Changing Seasons – May 2019”

how awful, I hope the people were not at home, it would be shocking if it happens while at home! Gosh, you and I have the same notebook obsession! I love them! That little kitty yarn bowl is cute! Have a fab week Sarah xx

I don’t know if they were at home, Gill, but I know that no one came to any harm. It was mighty loud even across the street, I don’t want to know how loud it must have been right there!
Notebooks are awesome, one can never have enough of them, right? 😉 Thank you! Have a wonderful week and summer too! xxx

Aww – thanks so much, Loisajay! 😀
No, just art, but as you can see, or rather hear 😉 , I enjoy music a lot. 😉 Going to visit your blog soon, just so busy doing this challenge at the moment and have a hard time catching up with all those wonderful blogs I’m normally visiting. But I really look forward getting to know you better!! 😀 Have a wonderful weekend!

It was so thoughtful of you to pause before taking photographs of the firemen at work and the scene. Good no one got hurt and the firemen were also taking photos lol. Probably not everyday they get to fix a chimney 😀 Such a cute kitten ceramic and I see your koala amirugumi in the background! My amirugumi is coming along quite nicely. Now learning how to embroider a face 😛 Haha, so many notebooks but notebooks these days look so good and very tempting to buy more and more. I have quite a few notebooks, like one for everyday planning, one for bills, one for book planning, one for blog planning…more notebooks please 😀

Hehe! Another notebook addict – great! 😀 Yes, you’re absolutely right, they really make them so beautiful these days, and one can never have enough. 😉
Thanks so much – I intended to sell the kitten bowl at the Christmas market but realized I won’t be able to part from it! So I will have to make another one that I can sell instead! LOL! 😀
Great news on the amigurumi front!! I don’t need to ask if you’re having fun – you obviously do. 😉 Would really love to see yours when you’re ready to share. 😀 I’ve been working on some mini-octopus the past weeks for key fobs – going to gift them to family and friends. 🙂 Now there’s this little army of octopus on my desk – a little menacing! LOL!
Wishing you a fabulous weekend and an even better week ahead! ❤

Glad you took the photo of the Firemen examining the damage done by the lightening bolt. It is an interesting picture. As always, your artwork steals the show. Your Kitten yarn bowl is truly adorable! I will have a look at your new challenge. Keep well Sarah.

No worries, Dominique!
I hope you two have a fabulous day together! And don’t be sad, I’m sure you’ll get together soon again! Whenever you feel sad just think of the lovely time you had together, that should make you smile. 😊 And if that doesn’t work – here comes a BIG HUG your way!! 💕

You are right. I have many wonderful memories and I will share them on the blog soon. By the way, it is as if you, Lisa, Dee-Dee and Linda were with us the all time. Darren can confirm it. I kept saying to him “Look there is a squirrel there. Sarah would love it”, “Oh what a cute chipmunk”, “Let’s take a pic of the subway for Sarah”, “Lisa and Linda would love this flower so much”, “Here’s the shed that Dee-Dee liked”… You get my point. Thanks for the hug. Sending you a huge one too.

Aww – that’s so sweet of you both to include us all! 😍😍 I actually talk a lot about you and Darren too with my friends even though they don’t blog themselves, like ‘I have a friend Montreal who would love this dress’ when shopping or ‘I have a friend in England who can paint much better than that!’ when visiting a gallery. 😄💕

What a huge amount of damage from that bolt. Thank heaven Zeus was only in a bad enough mood to strike the house and not injure people. As for those firemen on the roof flirting with you – I don’t have a single other friend who can make that claim. “Guess how many firemen climbed the roof of the house across the street just to wave hello to me?” Hope the damage is quickly repaired, and hope the owners have insurance.

Your newest yarn bowl is darling, especially fired so whimsically. Do your students have a year end art show where they get to showcase their work? It gives them such pride to be able to hear all the accolades for their achievements. I bet your students are eager to tell you how much they love having you to teach them. The Heureka moment is clever way of leaving the light on without wasting electricity!

Thank you so very much, Shari!
Yes, luckily Zeus wasn’t in too bad a mood, but it was mighty scary as it was! I swear, I could feel the electricity running down my arms! And at first I thought it struck my balcony, it was that loud!

Now that you’ve said it, I think I haven’t heard about someone being able to claim that firemen came up the roof in order to flirt with them either! 😉 LOL!

There was an art show planned for the end of this school year, but sadly almost half the kids didn’t manage to finsish their respective projects even though they had 6 months time to do it!! To be honest, I’m quite disappointed this year, a lot of the kids didn’t seem to have any fun and I really don’t know why. Maybe I’m a bad teacher? I doubt they will tell me how much they loved having me teach them. 😦
It’s a sad development really, but I hear about it everywhere. The kids seem to have lost any interest in creativity and fantasy. I blame modern technology for this.
But luckily there were three kids that did enjoy their time with me and also created lots of lovely art. 😀

I’m really sorry to hear that your students didn’t appear to enjoy their school year. I’ve been reading a lot of articles about how too much technology is unhealthy for growing minds in so many ways, and one is that kids are markedly more depressed. They walk around, like their parents, engrossed in their phones, unresponsive to the actual world around them. It’s changing the way people interact with other people. That, and the many growing threats on the environment and personal security, it’s no wonder kids are so stressed.

Calling them stressed makes a lot of sense to me, as some of the kids’ reaction to a class like mine is, that they actually don’t have time to waste it on something that won’t help them later in life – isn’t this an awful thing to say or even think for a kid? They’re infused with so much dread about their future, there’s no space for them to let go and just be kids anymore. It saddens me so much, and I’m overjoyed whenever one of the kids does show some interest after all.
Last time it took me about 15 minutes to make one of the girls be proud of her work – a very cute penguin painted in all the colours of the rainbow! – and take it home with her. She finally relented, I think she’s afraid her parents won’t like it because it doesn’t look machine made! Can you imagine my despair?

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